Monday, May 1, 2017

Women's Suffrage by A. G.

In the lecture, Ginzberg talks about Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s successes and failures. Ginzberg also goes into detail about Elizabeth’s famous racist personality and how she was involved with the women’s rights movement. Elizabeth was known for being a dangerous radical. When Elizabeth felt that women’s rights were not getting the attention that it deserved, she started to blame everyone especially African American men. This led to her disrespecting her close friends. In the reading, Expectant at Seneca Falls, it goes through Martha Coffin Wright’s early life, tragedies of her lovers and sons, and her involvement and influence in the women’s rights movement. The reading gives information about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and how she was close and related to the same cause as Martha Coffin Wright. Unlike Elizabeth, Martha was open minded and focused on the main goal the women tried to reach which was equal rights for all women. Martha saw the importance of this goal and was able to befriend many African American men and women.

In the lecture, Ginzberg’s point of view of Elizabeth Cady Stanton is neutral. She talks about the negative, racist personality, and positive, feisty woman, sides of Stanton. Ginzberg also gave the opinions of her students of Stanton which was negative because she was not a hero figure. In the article, the point of view was possibly one sided because we knew all the positive influences of Martha and what a great person she was to others. We did not know the negative side of Martha if she had one.

In class, we were put into groups of two at first to complete sentences as if we were either Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Martha Coffin Wright. Then we got into groups of four to discuss what we came up with. We used the knowledge that we acquired from either the lecture or the reading. After, we discussed as a class the significance and the journey of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Martha Coffin Wright.

We discussed the religion factor in Martha’s life and how once she made herself distant from Quaker life, she pursued the lifestyle of a “true” Christian. We also discussed the men’s point of view, when asked how the husbands felt about the movement. Some thought it was nonsense.

What kind of men decided to sign the Declaration of Sentiments? How come NWSA and AWSA couldn’t work out their differences?